Posts Tagged ‘Complacency’

I hate that feeling when I know that I am doing something right but it still makes me a little uncomfortable on some level. Part of me wishing that I did not know about anything and could just ignore it. I guess the term is being “blissfully ignorant”. And blissfully stupid. Treading outside the usual comfort zone.

It occupies my mind a lot lately. I know there is always the option to just walk away and ignore but I am not that kind of person. Walking away from something, which I know to be a good thing to stand up for, just because it is outside my every day comfort zone… well that would be much worse to live with. I could not face myself in the mirror, knowing I walked away because I was too chicken-shit to rock the boat.

Taking a stand against or for something is not as easy as it sounds it seems. I mean, look around; every day we are encouraged to just go blindly ahead with our ordinary lives, in an ordinary way, not causing any trouble, not upsetting the order of things. – Who decided the order though?

Go to work and invest your life, give 110% in work because that will make you successful and then you will get somewhere. – But go where and how will that fulfil your life? Working until you are burned out and then what? Will any corporation actually give a toss or just as easily replace you?

Watch TV, preferably a mind-numbing TV reality shows where you can say “well at least my life is not that pathetic”. Watch the news, see how others live and how they mess up so that you can feel good about yourself. – But it is becoming more and more clear that even the news these days are angled for some agenda and no longer unbiased.

With our minds numbed from work, exhausting us to earn money for someone else, to one way TV fed information, telling us that you should focus on consumerism and a superfluous living, why should we care about anything else?

To me it seems that independent thought and a willingness to stand up for others is something that is frowned upon today. Don’t rock the boat.

We have become complacent in our lives. Nothing fazes us any more because we will not acknowledge anything that is uncomfortable to know or hear about. If we do not acknowledge it then we do not need to look into it, we do not need to make a stand for or against. We do not need to care. It has become too easy to not care.

All through-out history people fought for freedom, rights and the very lives that we are privileged to live now.

Does that mean that we can just sit back now? That we are done and we can leave others to whatever end?

There will always be evil in the world. There will always be injustice. There will always be a need for someone to say “stop” and help. If that someone is joined by another and then by another then we can all act together and make a better world. It may sound very altruistic but really, if no-one tries then how will anything change for the better?

“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” – Dalai Lama.

But no, it is not easy to rock the boat. On the other hand knowing I can help rock the boat and make a positive difference, however small, also means that turning my back on it would be even worse.

Complacency is the worst evil in this world. Look around you and be that someone who reaches out and says “stop”.

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. “ – Edward E Hale